“If you have been able to discover something that is true, then you should have compassion for those who are laboring under the spell of falsehood. And if instead of pitying them, you mock and belittle them, then you will become swollen with pride—and then, when the lies that comfort you come around, you will be unable to resist them.”

"Finally, says Bacon, there is something more mysterious: “a natural though corrupt love of the lie itself.” Why do some people simply love lies? Because, Bacon suggests, “a mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure.” It makes life more interesting, more fun. “Doth any man doubt, that if there were taken out of men’s minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves?”'

“If you have been able to discover something that is true, then you should have compassion for those who are laboring under the spell of falsehood. And if instead of pitying them, you mock and belittle them, then you will become swollen with pride—and then, when the lies that comfort you come around, you will be unable to resist them.”